People of Indonesia - Javanese
There are approximately 83 million Javanese, the majority of whom live in Jawa Timur and Jawa Tengah provinces; most of the rest live in Jawa Barat Province and on Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and other islands. (Altogether, some 110 million people live on Java.) Although many Javanese express pride at the grand achievements of the illustrious courts of Surakarta and Yogyakarta and admire the traditional arts associated with them, most Javanese tend to identify not with that elite tradition, or even with a lineage or clan, but with their own village of residence or origin. These villages, or desa, are typically situated on the edge of rice fields, surrounding a mosque, or strung along a road.
Most Javanese villages are divided into smaller administrative units, each known as either a rukun kampung (village mutual assistance association) or rukun tetangga (neighborhood association). Rukun is an important Javanese word of Arabic origin describing both “state of being and a mode of action .... a state in which all parties are at least overtly at social peace with one another,” according to anthropologist Robert Jay; it is “a process of sharing through collective action.” Anthropologist Mary Hawkins has argued that while modern forms of contract labor and technology may have eroded the rural communalism implied in earlier senses of rukun, the term remains important as an ideological construct for representing valued aspects of collective life. Australian anthropologist Patrick Guinness has written that the neighborhood is the “largest social grouping, whose members participate in household rituals, gather for rituals, organize working bees, whose youth band together for sports teams and organizations, who maintain arisan (rotating credit assocciations) and who hold certain property such as funeral equipment.” In rural areas, these groups also sometimes collaborate on harvesting their rice. The rukun associations were rooted in the ideals of the family but became official administrative units during the Japanese occupation in World War II. Many of these local communities organized security arrangements called ronda malam (night watches). Neighbors watched closely for any suspicious activity and participated vigorously in the apprehension of thieves, even exacting immediate justice on their own. The heads of these organizations were elected or appointed officials and were considered representatives of the government.
Differences in social class are less elaborate and less pronounced in Javanese rural villages than in urban areas. In villages where land is relatively evenly distributed, some form of mutual labor exchange is common; in villages where there are large numbers of landless peasants, however, there also are relationships of a clear client–patron nature with landowners, who themselves rarely own more than two hectares. In urban centers, the distinctions among a refined, traditional elite, an intermediate-level bourgeoisie sharing patterns of consumption, and a more collectivist peasantry are more pronounced.
Leaders are usually male, in both the village and the urban neighborhood. Although some are political appointees, these leaders are theoretically chosen by popular consensus. This consensus system proceeds—ideally—through a discussion of different points of view, after which a senior-level participant makes a final decision. Although there is increasing acceptance of competitive elections, in many decision-making contexts it is not uncommon to make use of a process referred to as musyawarah mufakat (deliberation with consensus).
Javanese kinship ties are reckoned through the mother and father equally. The nuclear family of mother, father, and children is more or less independent; formal obligations between kin groups are not much greater than in Western societies. The reduced occurrence of divorce—rates were as high as 60 percent in some areas in the 1960s—has made the shifting of responsibility for children—particularly among the mother’s kin—less likely in recent years. This three-decade trend toward more stable marriages is attributed to rises in the level of educational attainment, age at first marriage, and income level. Migrations during the 1997–98 financial crisis took a toll on marriages, but stricter laws and a more conservative religious ethos have mitigated some of those effects. Javanese have no clans, lineages, or other kin-based social groupings that, among some other ethnic groups, form the basis of corporate entities such as family businesses. Sons tend to treat their fathers with great formality and deference. Although the mother is the focus of the family in many respects—she usually handles the finances—she is often depicted as suffering the most when the family experiences any loss. She is usually the one who disciplines the children, while the father is mostly occupied outside the home.
The Javanese view childhood as a series of shocks from which children must be protected. Although the youngest children are much indulged, major transitions can be sharp and radical. The process of weaning, for instance, is traditionally a rapid one in which the mother simply leaves the child with a relative and then returns a few days later. Overall, however, a baby’s general contentment and resistance to disease and misfortune are viewed as dependent on the child’s being protected from any form of emotional upset. Babies are constantly held and nursed on demand; babies must not be disappointed. Once weaned, they are often released into the care of an older sibling or relative who indulges and protects them.
Children become increasingly capable of withstanding the shocks and stresses of life as they grow older, in part because they have become more aware of the rules defining social interaction. The rules of etiquette help a child learn self-control. For example, children must learn to address their father respectfully, using refined speech. Failure to comply properly with the rules will result in a sharp reprimand. For Javanese, learning the proper degree of shame, according to anthropologist Ward Keeler, is a matter of becoming aware of one’s vulnerability in interaction. Children learn that dealing with others in a faceto-face encounter always poses a threat to one’s sense of self.
Many of the rules of etiquette center on the proper use of language, which is more problematic in Javanese than in most other languages. When addressing someone, Javanese speakers must choose from several different levels of politeness. These “speech levels” comprise words that have the same meaning but are stylistically different. For instance, among the Javanese variations of the word “now,” saiki is the least refined, while saniki is a little fancier, and samenika is the most elegant. Javanese has many such triads—so many that people cannot speak for long in the language without having to decide whether the situation is formal or informal and what the relations among the participants are.
People generally use the highest level of language to speak to high-status people in formal situations and the lower levels to speak to people of lower rank or with whom they are most intimate. Although children learn to speak at the lowest level first, they gradually are socialized to speak to some of their more distant kin and respected strangers in higher-level forms of Javanese. This formality is particularly common in cities, where there are marked distinctions in status. However, there is evidence that these practices are slowly changing. Many children who go elsewhere in Indonesia for work or school or who live overseas refuse to write letters home to their elders in Javanese because of their fear of making a glaring error. Increasingly, in formal situations, they use Bahasa Indonesia because they are no longer sure of the social situation at home. Although Bahasa Indonesia possesses a relatively simple system for indicating status distinctions, it is regarded as a foreign idiom among many Javanese.
An expectation that women would use the higher levels more than men would be valid within the domestic environment—and primarily for the purpose of showing deference among their relatives. Men use more politeness levels in public than women do. Moreover, in the public sphere, the use of Javanese politeness levels is not so much associated with humility as it is with efforts to raise oneself above another. Men are more likely to see the use of politeness levels as a strategy for negotiating status.
There is great diversity among Javanese religious practices. Although most Javanese are Muslims, the wide variations in Islamic beliefs and practices are associated with complex factors such as regional history and social class. The most pious, and recognizably Muslim, varieties of Javanese religion are associated with the santri tradition, nurtured by traditional Muslim schools. Santri hold more tightly to the moralistic tone of Islam and express the fundamental universalism of its teachings. They may make a pilgrimage (hajj in Indonesian) to Mecca, teach their children the Quran, and work for the social, spiritual, and even political advancement of the ummah.
In contrast to the santri tradition, varieties of kejawen (“Javanist”) religious practice variously incorporate pre-Islamic, animistic, and aesthetic forms of spirituality. Although some observers have distinguished between elite and common varieties of kejawen practice, many now see the traditional aristocracy and peasantry losing their distinctiveness in this regard. Religiosity is expressed through fasts, trances, visits to graves, and performance genres such as wayang kulit (a form of shadow theater employing flat leather puppets), concerts by gamelans (Javanese orchestras featuring percussive instruments), dance, and other arts of the courtly tradition, which are widely appreciated by the Javanese community as a whole.
Most observers of Javanese religion agree that the core Javanese religious ritual is a brief feast known as the slametan. Neighbors, relatives, and coworkers may be invited to attend on the occasion of a birth, marriage, death, or change in status. The host typically gives a speech in high Javanese explaining the purpose of the event to the guests, after which some incense is burned, a prayer is recited in Arabic, and the special festive food is consumed, at least in part. Then, what is left is divided among the guests and taken home. Believers seek to protect themselves against harmful spirits by making offerings, enlisting the aid of a dukun (healer), or engaging in spiritual acts of self-control and right thinking.
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